Mount Calvary Sermons

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2013 LUKE 15:1-10 It was a solemn day on the hillside. It always was when this tragedy played out, as it did this time every year. The sheep were now fully grown, no helpless lambs for the predators to pick off at will. The year was ageing, leaving the wolves with less easy pickings. The carnivores grew more brazen in their hunting, more obsessed in their staring at the sheep from the margins. A moment's carelessness by a member of the flock could be fatal at this time of year. The more experienced sheep looked at each other with knowing dread. The human had stopped his work, placed his staff on the ground, eased himself onto a bolder, removed his lunch from his cloak, and mentally switched off. It wasn't really his fault, the sheep reasoned, after all he had been watching them closely all morning. They could forgive his lapse in vigilance. It was what happened next they could not forgive. The hard-nosed realism of economics demanded the shepherd accept his loss, don't throw